SANTA FE – Changes are coming to the way the New Mexico Department of Health (DOH) is addressing COVID-19. Starting today, epidemiological reports covering COVID-19 will change from bi-weekly to monthly. In addition, the COVID-19 Data Dashboard will be discontinued and archived on May 11.
“These changes reflect the new phase of COVID-19 that we are in today,” said DOH Deputy Secretary Laura Parajon. “We will continue to actively monitor trends related to COVID-19, but with fewer COVID-19 tests being taken and inconsistent reporting of home COVID-19 tests, the day-to-day numbers are not as meaningful as they once were.”
NM Notify, New Mexico’s COVID-19 Exposure Alert system, also will be shut down on May 11. The system was supported by the Association of Public Health Laboratories in partnership with Google, Apple and Microsoft. The national resources that made this system possible are no longer going to be available after May 11.
During the pandemic the majority of New Mexicans activated the NM Notify app on their phone. More than 1.5 million notifications were sent to users who may have had sufficient exposure to COVID-19 to become infected.
“We are proud of how well New Mexicans picked up and used this technology to reduce the spread of COVID-19,” said Daniel Sosin, a medical epidemiologist with the NM Department of Health. “NM Notify was an important tool early in the pandemic and 54% of New Mexicans with smartphones activated the app. We will need this tool in the future, and we will be ready to use it even more effectively.”
Users of NM Notify will be automatically notified when the application is no longer operational. They will not need to do anything at that time.
